Study: Myspace Among Most Popular Sites To Solicit Sex

Ford President and CEO Alan Mulally delivers the opening keynote to kick off the 2010 International Consumer Electronics Show at the Las Vegas Hilton January 7, 2010 in Las Vegas, Nevada. CES, the world's largest annual consumer technology tradeshow, runs through January 10. The gadget show is expected to feature 2,500 exhibitors showing off their latest products and services to about 110,000 attendees.MySpace is finding new use as a place for prostitutes to solicit their wares online. (Getty Images)

WASHINGTON (CBS DC) – Once the center of social media, MySpace is finding new life as a place to solicit sex, according to a new report on the underground sex trade.

“Myspace, all that, it’s just a disguise,” one unidentified worker said in the study. “There are so many ways to sell [sex] and they are thinking of new things now.”

The study from the Urban Institute was conducted using interviews from pimps, traffickers, sex workers, child pornographers, and law enforcement. It focused on 8 cities: Atlanta, Dallas, Denver, Kansas City, Miami, Seattle, San Diego, and Washington, D.C.

But MySpace and other social sites extend beyond a geographical boundaries.

According to the sex workers interviewed, Myspace is more popular than Craigslist, Backpage.com, Adam4Ada.com, Eros.com, AdultSearch.com, TheEroticReview.com, and Cityvibe.com for soliciting clients.

“The economy is out of control now. Way bigger than the ’90s,” they said. “We got Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, all this for pimps and for people, not just [for advertising] hos, but for merchandise.”